the economic cost of homophobia
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Economic costs-homophobia-lgbt-exlusion-indiaTRANSCRIPT
Preliminary results—please do not cite
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Good afternoon, excited to be here on distinguished panel. Thanks to Fabrice, Phil, Jake. On just about any given day, we now see views of LGBT people in the headlines around the world: --Last summer: Happy same-sex couples getting married in New Zealand, France, or California. More recently those pictures have been replaced by sobering and disturbing images. --LGBT Activists arrested, beaten by mobs, protesting threats to dignity and livelihoods from discriminatory laws, whether in existence or contemplated. Much of the discussion and concern about these issues take place in the context of human rights, and certainly concerns about the dignity, safety, and other human rights of LGBT people SHOULD be prominent. But today I want to add a new angle alongside human rights, not to replace human rights, but to help us think more broadly about what the impact of homophobia and exclusion are on LGBT people’s lives as well as larger social and economic consequences for everyone. That angle we are calling the economic cost of homophobia.
Key points • A model: Homophobia and economic
development are closely connected through multiple links.
• A case study: A focus on India allows an estimate of the cost of homophobia, although not all costs can be quantified:
0.1 – 1.7% of GDP • Future directions: We need more data,
research, and development attention on LGBT exclusion.
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1. TODAY…. Not a brand new argument --and of course World Bank and others have noted that other forms of exclusion can harm the economy, as fabrice mentioned. --some pieces of this in lgbt world, but haven’t quantified it at a broad national scale before. 2. Why India? Previous WB study with Indian groups Amaltas and Humsafar Trust (South Asia Devel Sector): Charting a Programmatic Roadmap for Sexual Minority Groups in India in 2012 ALSO --have been organizing for a while, there are organizations doing a variety of kinds of work, legal, health, leadership development, anti-violence, workplace --Have some data, primarily thru HIV-related research and the efforts of organizations to collect data on the experiences and challenges of lgbt people; Something to work with in an emerging economy where LGBT human rights are on the agenda. Find a big cost….but also a conservative estimate, as I’ll describe later. 3. Many challenges to fill in those knowledge gaps in the future in India and other countries.
Methodological issues
• Big conceptual issue: Local vs. global identities
• Data challenges • Expanding international scholarship
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BACK UP AND START WITH SOME preliminary POINTS First LGBT are western identity concepts, not directly applicable in countries like India, where local, indigenous concepts map gender and sexual attraction, behavior into different self-identities. But thinking about data: hijra, kothis, panthis, double-deckers in studies; some orgs and individuals do use LGBT terms, too. In this project, I use LGBT because of common experiences across identities: stigma and prejudice against those whose primary sexual attractions and behavior are to those of the same sex, and stigma and prejudice against those who are gender nonconforming compared to their birth sex in their expressions and identities. Even without thinking about diversity of identities, SOGI Data have lots of challenges, particularly sometimes invisible groups of people, invisibility as survival strategy; always learning how to study; few surveys are designed to provide data needed for model; not included in big stat surveys of popn-based samples; hard to find data on lesbians and trans men. Draw on a body of research on SO workplace and economic issues that is spreading out from US and Western Europe data and scholars to fill in some gaps; not ideal but gives us something to work from.
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Another basics. What I mean by homophobia and exclusion: Homophobia: negative responses to and prejudice against LGBT people. Also would include transphobia, specific negative attitudes against transgender people. The term exclusion in this report captures the impact of homophobia on LGBT people, reducing their access to full and equal participation in a wide range of social institutions, including schools, workplaces, health care settings, the political process, the financial system, the criminal justice system, families, government programs, and other laws and policies. These outcomes reflect homophobia (underlying motivation) + exclusion (actual outcomes).
Discrimination 56% of white-collar LGBT
workers report discrimination
Poverty 64% of Kothis had incomes below $70 per month 66% of MSM in Chennai below $1.50/day
Violence 28% of urban lesbians experienced physical abusive violence in family
Research from India
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What does that look like in India? The impact of homophobia on individual well-being is both intuitive and clear from the data. But this study and panel highlight the broader impacts at employer/business level and economy level.
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Individual effects translate into important economic inputs that are diminished by homophobia; LIST EACH ONE Reduced inputs leads to macro economy-wide effects now and into the future. Lower output now most obvious, but also into the future because --avoidable costs on health and social programs (other fiscal effects, lost tax revenues) --reduced incentives and resources to invest in human capital
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These are the effects I was able to measure; some research suggests exclusion from education, but don’t have research to quantify it. Start with discrimination and pressure to marry generating lower productivity and less labor force participation.
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GO THRU STEPS. Go back and unpack a bit. 1. Start with the connection between wages and productivity. Economists see wages as reflecting productivity of workers, at least approximately. So lost wages compared to what you should be earning given skills, is a measures of lost productivity. 2. Why do wages fall? Discrimination and family constraints on lesbians will reduce LGBT wages. --Discrimination is unequal treatment of LGBT people when they have the same skills and ability as non-LGBT people, but paid less. Usually because hired into lower skill and lower paying jobs. Not fully using existing talent is inefficient, wasteful. So lost productivity to the economy. --Studies also show that pressure to marry diff-sex partner puts LGBT people in diff-sex households. So lgbt people are dividing up household and market labor based on social norms about gender roles (and possibly economic considerations of comparative advantage). Bigger economic constraint on women. Will disproportionately keep lesbians in homes, out of labor force, so lost labor input and development of human capital over time. 3. Where does 10% come from? The int’l scholarship provides two figures: Average of lost wages for gay & bisexual men compared to heterosexual men in high-income economies in north america and europe is 11%; the second is that 9% those studies suggest that lesbians would earn 9% more if they had the option to live alone or with female partners (outside of different-sex households). Averaged to get 10%. CONSERVATIVE: Effect on transgender people likely lost wages larger than 10% loss. Doesn’t take into account higher unemployment rates Based on countries with more legal protection, whereas India has none, so lost productivity likely lower there than in India Create an average of earnings as reported by 2012 National Sample Survey office for formal, casual, and self-employed workers PREVALENCE: Use a range LOW: 0.6% derived from HIV surveillance statistics (UNAIDS 2012), 2.3 million MSM and compared to population estimates for Indian men aged 15-59 (3 million) HIGH: 3.8% identifying as LGB (or LGBT) from average of studies in us & europe from population-based samples (17 million) WAGE SHARE: UNIDO for manufacturing; NSS data for self-employed workers
Lost output from health disparities: HIV, depression, suicide
• Depression: MSM rates 6-12 times population rate of 4.5% from the World Mental Health Survey
• Suicidal thoughts: LGBT Rates 7-14 times population rate of 2.1% from developing countries
• HIV: HIV prevalence among MSM is 15 times population rate
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Health disparity: higher rate of prevalence for LGBT compared with population rate, argue it’s rooted in homophobia One study in Mumbai found that 45 percent of MSM surveyed were suicidal A study of MSM in Chennai revealed that half of the sample met clinical criteria for depression Adjusted for sample selection bias in these studies by cutting the disparity in half—e.g. 3-6 times rather than 6-12 times Likely related to homophobia because of exclusion. Experiencing economic disadvantages, family rejection, discrimination. GENERATE ECONOMIC COSTs because less ability to work at all or only at a lower productivity, early death, health care costs that could be avoided. HOW TO VALUE?
Estimating lost output from health
• Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost per health condition by country
• “Excess DALYs” = number of current LGBT DALYs minus expected DALYs at population rate
• Each excess DALY valued at 1 - 3 times per capita national income ($1,530-$4,590 in 2012)
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Draw on int’l scholarship again: Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010 Includes self-harm, depression, and HIV DALY: disability adjusted life year, both years of life lost and impact on quality of life of living with a disability (measured as a weighted year) How many currently, given rates of prevalence How many in the absence of homophobia where experience at population rate. Example: 9.3 million disability-adjusted years of life lost (DALYs) from HIV in India. HIV prevalence among MSM is 15 times population rate, so calculate excess cases At least 1.7%, or 159,360 DALYs from MSM Given popn prevalence of MSM expect only about 10,000 per year EXCESS about 150,000 World Health Organization’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health 2001 value of DALY—low, probably health effect is larger in dynamic terms
Health cost of homophobia in India, 2012
Low estimate High estimate
HIV disparity $228 million $683 million
Depression $184 million $8.8 billion
Suicide $300 million $13.7 billion
Total $712 million $23.1 billion
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SO GET A BROADER RANGE from three parameters with ranges: prevalence of condition, prev rate of LGBT in popn, DALY value
Partial cost of homophobia in India, 2012
Low estimate High estimate
Health disparities $712 million $23.1 billion
Labor-related loss $1.2 billion $7.7 billion
Total $1.9 billion $30.8 billion
% of GDP 0.1% 1.7%
Projected annual IBRD lending to India: $3.4 billion
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How big is this cost? Compare to % GDP Compare to projected IBRD lending to India in next 3-5 years
Below the tip of the iceberg
• Other costs cannot be modeled with current data: education, emigration, costs to families
• Broader positive effects of inclusion: increase attraction to skilled labor, investment, widening options for women, savings on health and other costs
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Also mentioned other reasons that the estimates are conservative—made low assumptions. Even so it’s a big number worthy of policy attention. LGBT exclusion hurts economies—a lot, even more than can fully measure.
Next steps: broadening & deepening
• Invest in data • Research priorities: focus on poverty
– Identifying problems – Evaluating existing interventions – Develop new policies and interventions
• Research infrastructure • Replicate in other countries
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Little attention to research now. [[Funders for LGBTQ Issues calculated that giving to ]] LGBTI projects and organizations in the global south and east only receiving 0.04% of Official development assistance from OECD DAC in 2010. Only about 5% of the funding for lgbt issues went to research ($1.7 million), so we can do a lot better. Data: many strategies that provide useful data (qualitative, purposive sampling) maybe eventually population-based samples, but not required to learn about llves of LGBT people Focus on poverty—confluence of exclusion across multiple sectors, particularly damaging, also in sync with World Bank mission. Id problems that you will be trying to solve Existing interventions to look at: adding trans people to reservation programs in educ, health, etc., documentation Livelihood and education programs targeted at T community eg SAATHI MNC voluntary nondiscrim policies Impact of news media and entertainment industry Infrastructure: developing local capacity to conduct research, univs and LGBT organizations; interdisciplinary teams. This model, and these priorities, suggest that research can lead to a fuller understanding of the needs of excluded LGBT people and how they affect the economy. We can use that to identify promising strategies for their inclusion, then we need to put them into practice to work to end the exclusion of LGBT people.